"When we think of printers, you've now got a whole series of Web-connected printers that as they connect to the Web, need an OS. We prefer to have that OS in our case to be our IP where we can control the customer experience as we always have in the printing business, and that's a big deal to us," Hurd said in a transcript complied by SeekingAlpha.com.

The news came as HP reported a strong quarter. Revenue came in at $30.8 billion, up 13 percent from the same time period last year. Earnings, meanwhile, were at $2.2 billion, up 28 percent from last year.

HP agreed to buy Palm last month for $1.2 billion, acquiring the company's award-winning WebOS and a deep library of patents on mobile technology. Shortly after the announcement, HP showed a slide deck suggesting WebOS would run on an upcoming tablet from HP.

Printers and tablets like the HP Slate were the two markets most cited for WebOS in the call. Hurd mentioned that HP has a "large family of devices" that could make use of Palm's "intellectual property."

Using Palm's WebOS throughout HP's product line doesn't mean that the company is abandoning Microsoft, Hurd cautioned. HP is the world's largest manufacturer of Microsoft Windows-compatible PCs, and HP hase committed to introducing a smartphone based on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 OS.

"Microsoft is probably one of the best relationships we've got in our company, and they're still extremely important," Hurd said.

And while Palm has built its recent business on smartphones, that seemed like the least interesting market for HP's Hurd.

"It isn't precisely ... a smartphone play," he said in the transcript. "All the way from a purely voice product up through a smartphone capability through a tablet through a notebook ... that's where we expect to go."

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta.
Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed...
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